How Should Sports Apparel Brand Get Rid Of Aging?

New Balance has entered an aging society, so where is the way to rebuild the brand?

Although New Balance has performed well in the running industry, its growth has slowed down in recent years, and unknowingly, the consumers of the brand have begun to enter the aging process. In addition, the brand has been regarded as more inclined to the leisure brand. To solve these problems, New Balance intends to revitalized itself, get rid of leisure brands and attract more young consumers. How does the brand intend to do this?

Robert DeMartini, chief executive of New Balance, admitted that their brands had become an aging brand unconsciously. But they will focus on their performance business again, helping brands create professionalism while attracting more and more young consumers to get rid of the brand image of their leisure brands. Robert Balance

This year is a very busy year for New Balance. The brand signed a cooperation agreement with the Liverpool Football Club of the Premier League, which marked the official entry of New Balance into the football field, and then launched the first global marketing campaign, the theme of which is "Always In Beta". New Balance hopes to shake the inherent view of consumers through this series of efforts.

"There is no doubt that we need to reinvigorate our businesses. Our growth rate is not as fast as that of the early twenty-first Century. New Balance has grown old in the unconscious. Our customers are aging. In the past, our performance in running categories and some slow motion business categories has been very good.

"As an owner of an enterprise, this is definitely not what we want it to happen, but it happens that way. The result seems to be that you focus on other things and ignore this piece, or fail to carry out the plan well. Robert Martini said at the summit of sports business leaders.

Get rid of leisure brand image

Now we must focus on its professional sports business. The goal of New Balance is to become the top three sports brand before 2020. But especially in the United Kingdom, the brand has been regarded as a more emphasis on leisure brands, which is what Martini hopes to avoid.

"It is very clear that one thing we must be careful of is that we are only regarded as a leisure brand. If you look at London, you see the most New Balance sneakers are Classics, and this shoe is not a product that is biased toward professional performance. We need to be aware of this.

"We don't want to be a leisure brand. Because it is very difficult to reinvent yourself or completely change yourself. By having professional performance products, you will still face the same challenges, but these challenges will not be as serious as they used to be. "

After focusing on professional performance categories, New Balance will face some big competition. Nike (NIKE) and Adidas (Adidas) spend millions of pounds on these products and marketing.

However, Martini believes that as the role of the digital platform is becoming more and more important, the advantages of the enterprise scale will no longer be as obvious as before, and the advantages and disadvantages of the product will become more and more important.

The challenge now is the correlation between products and consumers. Martini said that in its new marketing campaign, "Always In Beta", the brand has made great efforts in the relevance of the product, and after 60 days of its activities, the marketing campaign has had a good impact. He claims that Google's search rankings have risen, and its e-commerce and retail businesses have also been promoted.

Market disruption

The growth of New Balance is strong, and its sales increase by 15% over the past five years. In 2014, the revenue reached $3 billion 300 million and would be close to $4 billion in 2015. Nike's sales amounted to $27 billion 500 million last year, despite its low growth rate of 10%.

However, it does not mean that Martini is content with the present situation and will not stop. He quoted the word "disintegration" as his main concern. He pointed to Uber and Airbnb, which subverted taxi and travel industries.

In addition, the brand is also concerned about obesity and "a whole generation of children are not active." New Balance has a foundation that invests in multiple projects to help deal with childhood obesity.

The idea of healthy living is also embedded in the business of New Balance. this brand A standing desk is set up, a subsidy is set up, a gym membership is opened, and smoking is prohibited in its workplace.

"It is easier to maintain regular exercise than to become a sport, and to continue a habit rather than start another new habit. From this perspective, we are very concerned about this. "

"We are not really thinking about the company's business. We just want to help solve the problems we see. But we did get a lot of benefits from it. Our health care expenditure dropped by 15% to 18%, but they were healthier than before, and they were more productive when they were healthy. We do the same work for this foundation. We think children should exercise regularly, "he explained.

Martini also saw that the nature of market change is a challenge they must overcome. Prior to entering New Balance, it worked in Procter & Gamble, Martini explained. At that time, the company was operating under a "marketing driven system", so long as the product was well done and the marketing of advertising was good, people would buy things on their own.

"But now this is no use. It is very clear that this approach is not effective enough to support the sustained development of its business. You have to integrate into the consumer's life and infiltrate the mobile end, within their reach.

" Marketing It's not just some flashy stories, but a kind of comforting thing that represents you and becomes part of it. How to do this is the most difficult part. Knowing what to do and how to end it is clear to all of them.